Northern Wei Splits Into East and West

Southern Qi had become Liang. In the north, Northern Wei had moved to Luoyang and deepened its reforms.

But after Emperor Xiaowen, the empire walked into a deeper crack. The problem began far from Luoyang, in the old military frontier.

The Six Garrisons Become a Burden

When Northern Wei first ruled from Pingcheng, Rouran often threatened the northern frontier.

To protect the capital, Tuoba Gui had set up many military towns along the northwest frontier. By Emperor Xiaowen's time, these were consolidated into six major garrisons, later known as the Six Garrisons.

Before Xiaowen, Northern Wei emperors treated them as the shield of the northern border. Their commanders were often Xianbei nobles, and their soldiers were mostly Xianbei. Serving there had once been a mark of status.

The garrisons guarded routes from the steppe into the Central Plains. They watched the frontier, warned the court, and provided mobile cavalry defense. Northern Wei's long pressure on Rouran depended heavily on them.

After the capital moved to Luoyang in 494, everything changed.

Luoyang became the new center of court investment. Pingcheng and the Six Garrisons slid from the center toward the edge.

The commanders lost the feeling of being close servants of the emperor. Worse, their material treatment declined sharply.

Northern Wei poured resources into Luoyang and fought frequent wars against the south. The treasury came under strain, and grain and pay for the garrisons were delayed.

Later, the Six Garrisons were also used to place political criminals, death-row prisoners, and exiles. These people added to local burdens.

The frontier was harsh and hard to support by itself. Luoyang nobles enjoyed new identities and new lives after Sinicization, while northern soldiers endured hunger and cold.

The contrast was bitter. Xianbei elites who moved to Luoyang wore Han-style clothes, spoke Chinese, and discussed family rank. Those left in the north still carried war and poverty.

While Emperor Xiaowen lived, his prestige held the structure together. But he died early, and his son Emperor Xuanwu also died young. Northern Wei soon entered another age of child emperors.

Empress Dowager Hu Rules

After Emperor Xuanwu died, the six-year-old Emperor Xiaoming, Yuan Xu, took the throne.

His birth mother, Empress Dowager Hu, ruled from court.

This raises an obvious question. Had Northern Wei not once killed the birth mother of an heir? Why was Hu still alive?

The answer lies in Xuanwu's reign. Xuanwu was gentler than earlier rulers and deeply Buddhist. More practically, the old rule had frightened palace women. Many consorts ended pregnancies or hid sons to save their own lives. Imperial succession itself became dangerous.

When Hu became pregnant, people urged her not to keep the child. She insisted. Xuanwu was delighted that she produced a son, and under palace and court pressure, the old rule was abolished.

So after Xuanwu died, Empress Dowager Hu could rule.

This also shows that Hu was not weak. She understood Xuanwu's character and used the succession crisis to change an old system.

At first, officials hoped she might stabilize the state like Empress Dowager Feng. Over time, they saw that she had ambition but not the same ability.

She loved pleasure. When handling the Six Garrisons, she offered some grain and money but did not seriously solve the frontier crisis.

The Six Garrisons Rebel

In 523, the tension exploded.

That year, Rouran suffered famine and asked Northern Wei for aid. Empress Dowager Hu refused. Unable to obtain grain, Rouran moved south and raided around the Six Garrisons.

The already desperate garrison people reached the breaking point. One garrison's soldiers and civilians seized official grain stores, and rebellion spread from town to town.

Northern Wei sent troops to suppress them. But this was not an ordinary refugee uprising. The garrison people were frontier military households who knew cavalry, archery, and war.

The more the court pressed, the more disorder spread.

Empress Dowager Hu and Emperor Xiaoming then chose an awkward solution. They asked Rouran for help.

Northern Wei had created the garrisons to defend against Rouran. Now it asked Rouran to help suppress its own frontier soldiers.

Rouran was happy to agree.

In 525, Rouran forces entered the garrison zone and joined Wei troops. Within two months, the rebel main force was defeated near Wuchuan. Its leader Poliuhan Baling disappeared, and the garrison people surrendered.

The suppression calmed the northern frontier only briefly. It moved the problem inland.

About 200,000 soldiers and civilians were relocated into Hebei, around Jizhou, Dingzhou, and Hejian. But Hebei itself was suffering floods and droughts. Local officials could not settle so many displaced people.

The garrison refugees soon scattered and rebelled again. Uprisings spread through Hebei and Guanzhong. Northern Wei began to shake.

Erzhu Rong Rises

As the court struggled, Erzhu Rong appeared.

He was a leader of the Qihu people and had long held power in Shanxi. During the Six Garrisons crisis, he recruited soldiers and trained a strong cavalry force.

Northern Wei appointed him to suppress rebellion. He accepted quickly, but he also used the disorder to expand his own power.

His army could fight. Uprisings were gradually crushed, and his status rose fast.

Then Luoyang produced a greater shock: Emperor Xiaoming died.

Rumor said Empress Dowager Hu had poisoned him. After years of her rule, palace gossip had spread. As Xiaoming grew up, he resented his mother's interference and prepared to take power. When this became known, Hu may have acted first.

After Xiaoming died, Hu briefly brought a newborn "crown prince" into court. The child was actually a girl. She then announced that Xiaoming had no son and placed the three-year-old Yuan Zhao on the throne.

This gave Erzhu Rong his reason to enter Luoyang.

He denounced Empress Dowager Hu, supported Yuan Ziyou, a nephew of Emperor Xiaowen, as Emperor Xiaozhuang, and marched on the capital.

Erzhu Rong crossed the Yellow River and entered Luoyang with little resistance. Hu's supporters scattered.

He then threw Empress Dowager Hu and the child emperor Yuan Zhao into the Yellow River and drowned them.

The Heyin Massacre

After removing Hu, Erzhu Rong did not stop.

His advisers argued that Luoyang's court was crowded with arrogant nobles and officials. If they were not cleared away, they would be impossible to control.

Erzhu Rong announced that civil and military officials should gather at Heyin for a sacrifice to Heaven.

When the officials arrived, he stood on a platform and accused them of greed, cruelty, and failure to aid the emperor, blaming them for the realm's disorder.

Then cavalry hidden in advance rushed into the crowd.

From senior ministers to ordinary officials, large numbers were slaughtered. About two thousand people died.

This was the Heyin massacre.

After Heyin, Erzhu Rong and the Luoyang court could no longer truly reconcile. He considered usurpation, but the realm was unsettled and his followers disagreed. He brought Emperor Xiaozhuang back to Luoyang and withdrew to Jinyang.

Northern Wei government, however, remained under his control. Emperor Xiaozhuang was surrounded by his agents.

The emperor would not accept this forever. In 530, he lured Erzhu Rong into Luoyang and killed him.

But Erzhu Rong's clan and military network still remained. His relatives raised troops, entered Luoyang, and killed Emperor Xiaozhuang. The court became even more chaotic, with emperors installed and removed.

Xiaozhuang had killed the man, not the military group behind him.

Eastern Wei and Western Wei

In the chaos, two men rose to the front: Gao Huan and Yuwen Tai.

Both were connected to the Six Garrisons world and had served under Erzhu Rong. After his death, each expanded his own power.

The frontier soldiers whom the court had once pushed to the edge now became the force deciding Northern Wei's fate.

Gao Huan moved especially quickly. He gathered many Six Garrisons soldiers, destroyed the Erzhu clan, controlled Northern Wei politics, and installed Emperor Xiaowu, Yuan Xiu.

Emperor Xiaowu did not want to be controlled by Gao Huan. He fled Luoyang and went west to join Yuwen Tai in Guanzhong.

Gao Huan responded by enthroning another puppet emperor, moving the capital to Ye, and beginning the Tianping reign era.

This eastern court became Eastern Wei.

Yuwen Tai did not let Emperor Xiaowu rule either. After the emperor reached Chang'an, Yuwen Tai soon poisoned him and installed a new emperor.

This western court became Western Wei.

One court stood in Hebei and Henan around Ye. The other held Guanzhong around Chang'an. The north was cut into two puppet courts and two military blocs.

Northern Wei had split into Eastern Wei and Western Wei.

After this, Eastern Wei and Western Wei fought for years. Liang in the south also wanted to recover the Central Plains. Chinese history entered a kind of later Three Kingdoms: Liang, Eastern Wei, and Western Wei facing one another.

In that world, the rebellion of Hou Jing was about to pull Jiangnan into disaster.